Three Petals of Sakura
by lucimonk
Summary: Modern version of the Little Match Girl


**Three Petals of Sakura**

It was a warm April on the island of Japan. The sky was blue and the trees were puffy and pink, because the cherry flowers were in the fullest blossom. The Japanese called these flowers "sakura," and everybody knew – even the Buddha knew, that the Japanese loved their sakura: the police thought sakura was the flower of justice. The monks thought sakura was the flower of fleeting mortality. The dreamy school girls thought sakura was as rosy as love.

It was a sakura festival when a young man was sitting alone in an office, trying to put together his report. He had chosen the computer closest to the largest glass window because that way, he could still see the sakura booming under the heating sun. That he did. But hours of sitting in front of a lifeless machine had drained all the heat out of his body. At first, he only had a thin T-shirt on. Now he was putting on his winter jacket and woolen scarf! A girl in her summer dress who passed by the big glass window looked at him curiously, almost sympathetically. He wanted her to stay, because even in that silence and that division by the glass window, just the presence of another human being would make him feel less lonely and less cold. But the moment their eyes met, the maiden shyly and swiftly walked away.

"She must be thinking staring is inappropriate. But she did not know her glare warmed my heart," thought the young man.

So he was left with just his thoughts. And scientists knew how gray thoughts could be. He has been sitting for so long, trying to formulate some abstract ideas, but now all he saw were chains of unfamiliar and unanimated words. None of his thought was working today.

In a moment of distraction, he looked outside the window. In the sunlight, only half of his reflection was caught by the glass – but even if the glass had became a mirror and showed his full reflection, it would have been the reflection of half of a man! His eyes had purple circles, the result of countless sleepless nights. His lips became dry and rough because he has forgotten even how to feel thirsty. Disturbed by his own ghostly image, the man thought he should just give up on this city life. But he did not dare. He thought of his poor mother in an unnamed village far far away who was waiting for his support every month. Then he thought of the city which was full of faceless people walking fast and silently. He thought of the circle of study, work, promotion and more promotion. It seemed to never end.

His fingers were almost numbed from typing. Oh, how much one petal of sakura could warm him! Dreamily, he opened the glass window. He was not supposed to open it because the cost for air conditioning was very high, but he persuaded himself five seconds would not harm anyone. The heavy divide moved slowly, making a scratchy, squeaky sound… Bree-z-e! How the wind caressed his cracking lips, how the sun kissed his purple eyes! A sakura petal flew back and forth in front of his nose before landing on his hand. What a strange sensation. The tiny leaf was as thin as an ant, but it was as if he was holding a piece of the sun. He did not even dare to hold it tight because he had a feeling it might disappear. After a while, he decided to cautiously lift his hand to speculate the pink marvel more closely. But the petal suddenly flew away. The young man looked up into the puffy pinkish shade beyond his window in a mild shock.

Disappointed, he stretched out his arm into the air. Sakura petals were falling like snow, very warm snow he thought. He remembered his childhood in the far far away village. It was winter and dark. He and his friends were chasing after one another on an open field under the pouring snow. On the white ground, there were only their footprints running up to the horizon. When they were tired, they sat down and looked back at where they came from. Under the beaming light of that village from afar, all they saw were thousands of little snowflakes chasing after one another just like the children. His friend murmured: "the snow looks like sakura, doesn't it?"

"Yes, it does" now answered the young man in the office.

He knew he was not remembering the snow. He was there! In the past and in the present, simultaneously. It was like in that instance, all of his life was folding into itself and he realized time was alive. So he stretched out both of his arms… And now he was five. His mother took him to a picnic in a sakura festival in the city. He was rolling on a carpet of fallen sakura petals and looking up at the blossoming sakura trees above. Mother sat next to him and took out their lunch boxes which she had spent the entire previous evening preparing. Oh, how delicious the Japanese bento box was: rice balls wrapped in dried seaweed, little squids opened up like lilies, tomato and carrot carved into swans. He became hungry, and thirsty! He had forgotten this feeling for a hundred of years.

Energetically, the young man climbed up and stood totteringly on the window. Pink sakura petals were dancing to the melody of white sun and blue wind. He remembered a common superstition his high school sweetheart used to tell him, that if you catch a falling leaf before it touches the ground, you might have a wish come true. Now he came to believe it too. As his hand stopped holding on to the window and reached out in shaking excitement, he saw the shadow of his sweetheart walking along a path of blooming sakura. The young man burst out crying in grief and in joy: grief for the distance between them and joy for the aliveness he was finally able to remember. His tears warmed his heart and freed him from his everlasting thoughts. He quickly let go of his other hand to try to catch her long shadow, and catch a petal to make a sakura wish.

His wish came true. He was walking hand in hand with his sweetheart in the far far away village. His eyes were bright, his lips were healed and they sat under a pink tree, eating lunch from a bento box just as his mother used to make. When the sakura festival ended, the passersby found him on the ground, and called the ambulance.

"He just wanted some air," said the people. No one saw the tears dried on his cheek, the tears he had cried for finally feeling alive.

_Trang Tran_

_November 30, 2009_


End file.
